If we (as in "civilization") were able to produce that many solar panels, we should cover all the deserts with them. It will also shift the local climate balance towards a more habitable ecosystem, enabling first vegetation and then slowly growing the rest of the food chain.
> It will also shift the local climate balance towards a more habitable ecosystem, enabling first vegetation and then slowly growing the rest of the food chain.
Depends on the deserts in question and knock-on effects: Saharan Dust Feeds Amazon’s Plants.
for solar panels that are say 25% efficient, that means 75% of optical energy is turned into heat, whereas the sand had a relatively high albedo, its going to significantly heat up the local environment!
No. It is enough for me to see such a single ridiculous statement of such magnitude to discount the rest of your voluminous contributions to this thread.
I'm dumbfounded, most light incident on a solar panel is not reflected, so logically photons were absorbed, some generated useful electron hole pairs pushing current around the load loop, others recombined and produced heat.
Its an entirely reasonable position in solar panel discussions to say that a 20% solar panel will heat as if 80% of the optical energy incident on the panel was turned into heat. Conservation of energy dictates that the input energy must equal the sum of the output work (useful energy) and output heat.
Not sure what you are driving at here, and just calling a statement ridiculous does not explain your position.
You have not done any real world verification on any of this, you are arguing from a very flawed and overly simplistic lay-persons theoretical model of how solar panels must function in space and then you draw all kinds of conclusions from that model, none of which have been born out by experiment. 25% efficiency for a solar panel means that 25% of the sunlight incident on a panel was turned into electricity. It has nothing to do with how big a fraction is turned into heat, though obviously the more of it is turned into electricity the less there is available to be converted into heat. And it does not account for other parts of the spectrum that are outside of the range that the panel can capture.
That 25% is peak efficiency. It does not take into account:
(1) the temperature of the panel (higher temp->lower efficiency), hence the need for passive cooling of the panels in space due to a lack of working fluid (air).
(2) the angle of the incidence: both angles have to be 'perfect' for that 25% to happen, which in practice puts all kinds of constraints on orientation, especially when coupled with requirements placed on the rest of the satellite.
(3) the effects of aging (which can be considerable, especially in space), for instance, due to solar wind particles, thermal cycling and so on
(4) the effect of defects in the panels causing local failure that can cascade across strings of cells and even strings of panels
(5) the effects of the backing and the glass
(6) in space: the damage over time due to mechanical effects of micro meteorite impact on cells and cover; these can affect the panels both mechanically and electrically
To minimize all of these effects (which affect both operational life span of panels as well as momentary yield) and effectively to pretend they do not exist is proof that you are clueless, and yet you make these (loud) proclamations. Gell-Mann had something to say about this, so now your other contributions suffer from de-rating.
1) yes solar panels should be cooled, but this is feasible with thermal radiation (yes it takes surface area)
2) pointing the panels straight at the sun for a sun-synchronous orbit is not exactly unobtainium technology
3) through 6) agreed, these issues need to be taken into account but I don't see how that meaningfully invalidates my claim that a solar panel operated at 25% efficiency turns ballpark ~75% of incident photons into heat. Thats basic thermodynamics.
OK I read the story (it was shorten than expected).
So simplistically put there are 3 periods:
1) the grassy period before overgrazing, lot of wind
2) the overgrazed period, loss of moisture retained by plants and loss of root systems, lot of wind results in soil run-away erosion without sufficient root systems
3) the solar PV period: at higher heights still lots of wind, but the installation of the panels unexpectedly allowed the grass to regrow, because wind erosion is halted.
The PV panels actually increase the local heating, but that doesn't need to directly equate to temperature: the wind just carried away the heat so it's someone else's problem :). Also the return of soil moisture thanks to the plants means a return of a sensible heat buffer, so the high temperature in the overgrazed period before solar panel introduction may not actually be an average temperature increase, but an increase in peak temperature during the summer. Imagine problematic summer temperatures, everybody would be talking about the increased temperature, when they are really just experiencing the loss of a heat buffer.
Telegram Messenger works fine at 2G (bar photos/videos, obviously). I was surprised by it. This is an upside of "building your own crypto" or the MTProto protocol, in their case.
This is a continuation of LaLiga vs Cloudflare in Spain. Spaniards are just blocking the whole CF IP ranges during the broadcast of important sports games, shutting down half the internet altogether. Italians are trying another way.
I can't ad hoc the best solution for all, but asking for help from Elon Musk and JD Vance, two prominent borderline fascist figures of our time, is disturbing.
This article is much better than hundred of similar articles "AI will change software engineering" because it have links to actual products created with said "AI". I can't say they are impressive, but definitely so for laypeople.
Can you remember the last 3 times when ads showed you products that solved your problem? I cannot.
The closest experience I have had was with ads for new restaurants, of which two turned out good and one - not good. Also, twice last year, I saw trailers of new movies I wasn't aware of at the moment. However, I am sure I would later discover it via reviews or word of mouth.
And mind that it was not problem solving, just an entertainment suggestion. I can live comfortably without new restaurants, or I will eventually discover them via other channels.
- Russian ship damages another cable
- EU deploys military ships and planes on Baltic/North sea
- Russia deploys military ships and planes of their own
- EU tries to stop and seize another RU shadow fleet vessel
- EU vessel denies EU demands
- EU attack a vessel, trying to immobilize it
- RU ships and planes attacks EU ships and planes
- casualties from both sides
- RU drops 10-15 MRBMs with conventional (non-nuclear) warheads onto key EU naval bases
- orange clown in the White House says "this is not our war"
The EU currently has about 450 Typhoons, 230 Rafales, and 140 Gripens. It also has about 160 F-35s; let's assume that the orange clown will not shut them down remotely. They also have some older Tornadoes, Mirages, and F-16 and F/A-18. All those aircraft are fighters, not strategic bombers. Their impact is limited; their range is about 700km.
The EU doesn't have a plan for how to fight without the US. Today's airstrikes should be carefully planned: planes, pilots, munitions, targets, engagement trajectories, and return trajectories. They will need time to figure out those plans. In their shoes, I would have started drafting those plans four years ago, but they still didn't.
The EU will not attack nuclear siloes, for fear of nuclear retaliation. Even if they try, most of those siloes are much farther than 700 km from Russia's borders. Those siloes were built by the USSR, and the USSR knew better.
The EU will use Storm Shadows/SCALPs/Tauruses. There aren't many of those in arsenals. Trying to use smart planning bombs with sub-100 km range will only make casualties 10-20 fold.
The EU strikes may reach Baltic and Black Sea naval bases, some energy infrastructure (port Primorsk being the first), and some airfields. They will not get the North Sea and Pacific bases, airfields near Murmansk, Saratov, and Irkutsk, which are used now to attack Ukraine.
Russia has integrated air defence, anв the shit is real, it is fight-proven, it works day and night for the last 3 years. Ask Ukrainians.
EU strikes will not be very effective and will not last. I estimate it in 1500-2000 sorties, and about half of those will reach the targets. The EU will lose about 100 planes and 50 pilots. Russia will receive a blow, but will not be devastated.
Russia will retaliate with new conventional MRBM strikes on the military and double-use airfields, and also factories of Gripen, Rafale, Airbus, etc. With those strikes, the EU will lose another 200 planes and most of its capacity to produce and repair them. Russia will also strike one large natural gas storage, one LPG from the Gulf comes into. Russian diversants will deliver several hits to the EU energy system, probably to large distribution hubs.
The EU stocks will drop to 70%-50% of their current value. The euro will fall by 20%-30% against global currencies. Electricity, gas, and heat prices will rise 2-3 times; gasoline and diesel prices will increase 1.5-2 times.
That sounds a lot as gloating mid-febraury 2022. We all know how it turned out.
> Russia has integrated air defence, anв the shit is real, it is fight-proven, it works day and night for the last 3 years. Ask Ukrainians.
Yep. There are videos of oil infrastructure destroyed every single day. Russia is big, so it's hard to defend, and most of its air defense systems are either destroyed, or try to cope with 91 imaginary drones in Valday.
> The EU will lose about 100 planes and 50 pilots
Wishful thinking. You assume EU planes flying just above Moskow, or something like that. Won't happen and Russian planes won't be able to send air missiles to intercept them, as Russia runs out of A-50s.
> will retaliate with new conventional MRBM strikes
Oreshnik does not exist. It's an experiment, that failed to launch into [mass] production. Wishful thinking again.
> Russia will also strike one large natural gas storage, one LPG from the Gulf comes into. Russian diversants will deliver several hits to the EU energy system, probably to large distribution hubs.
This is realistic and very likely, those tactics were already tested in the past few years.
> The EU stocks will drop to 70%-50% of their current value. The euro will fall by 20%-30% against global currencies. Electricity, gas, and heat prices will rise 2-3 times; gasoline and diesel prices will increase 1.5-2 times.
Not realistic. There is oil in the world, there is a lot of oil processing in Europe. US would love to send LNG and earn a lot of money, but it won't be 2-3 times. Ukraine has shown, that Russia can't keep enough pressure to stop the economy completely, so 70-50% numbers are too high.
You are not playing a war game, you are mostly fantasizing about world dominance, as many Russians did mid-feb 2022. Yes, Russia can spoil your day. No, it can't fight and defend successfully on two fronts. Yes, it has more soldiers now and experience. No, it can't protect them on marches, it's forced to fight with FPVs and will be. Armored vehicles are lost. Air defenses are lost. Many strategic aviation, including bombers and A-50s are down. Bombers didn't even knew what hit them, no ballistic missiles needed. Few A-50s were hit by ground-based air defense systems, which is kinda ironic. EU has stockpiled air defenses which, as we know, work well against Kinzhals, Onyxes, etc. EU has Saab 340s to defend against low-flying Kalibres and drones. EU doesn't have enough interceptor drones yet, but it has enough AAGs. And you should expect the same drone swarming as done in Ukraine, to penetrate the air defense with ballistics.
So, I would expect
1) Diversions
2) PsyOps
3) Combined strikes (not as devastating as you paint them)
4) CyberOps (can count as diversions)
I would not expect
1) Air superiority
2) Destruction of Europe's industrial and military infrastructure by missiles (maybe some by GBUs, but seems risky)
3) big drop in EU stocks, or increase in pricing (unless CyberOps and PsyOps succeed)
My point is not that Russia can win the war with Europe, it definitely can not. My point is that Europe can't even start the war with Russia. It is economically and politically unsustainable for the EU locomotives: Germany, France, Netherland. It will be devastating for the entire EU political canvas when Russia's marionettes Hungary and Slovakia, backed by right-wing EU and US actors will start peddling pro-Russian (masked as anti-war) rhetoric at scale 10x from now.
My point is that the EU has a unique opportunity to outsource that war to Ukraine, but seems like blowing that opportunity.
Update: I hope you are right about RS-26/Oreshnik, but you can't spread hope on your sandwich, as an old Russian proverb goes.
Russian tactics with EU is not to start a full-scale war, but to draw aggro there, so they won't be able to chill and outsource the war to Ukraine, but instead to prepare themselves, which would limit the amount of support given to Ukraine. Make EU anxious -> EU keeps more resources at home instead of directing them to Ukraine. Even if it gets hot, advances are unlikely from both sides. (Believe it or not, but I didn't use AI to write this, I hate that it overuses some figures, so I'm forced to apologize for them).
You can hear similar individualistic rhetoric from puppets (Hungary and Slovakia, some parties in other EU countries), which themselves only get richer from the ongoing war (they provide almost no support, but get high return from taxing Ukrainian refugees, while also being subsidized by leading EU members).
Also, there is another Russian PsyOp to paint Ukraine as ridiculously corrupt country in mass consciousness, designed, again, to prevent others from providing support ("it will be stolen anyway"), which, unfortunately, plays well with Ukrainian fight with corruption (corruption scheme gets exposed, actual corruption goes down, but it's then used as an example, how corrupt it is, while in many countries, including EU, corruption is not much better, but dynamic of change is smaller, so there is no much public attention to it, and it's not magnified by Russian PsyOps).
The real attacks from Russia on EU and others are designed to weaken support of Ukraine, by any means.
Ukraine has a chance to capitalize on that, by collective defense programs and exporting extra munitions, such as drones (many companies sprung up and current production capacity is much more, that the government can pay for, so exports could subsidize locally consumed weapons, and interceptor drones are much cheaper, than missiles to intercept Shaheds aka Geran, Molnias and other, launched by hundreds each strike, sometimes even up to thousand a day), and experience, but it's slow to get to speed.
> I hope you are right about RS-26/Oreshnik
Me too, but it's not that precise anyways. It can deliver nuclear warheads, maybe it could be bettered with individually targeting submunitions, but in current form it's only good to carpet-bomb large areas, providing it could actually launch successfully. Note, that there was only one strike with it in many years, without using it they can paint it as better, than it is. Meanwhile, there were many failed launches of other IRBM/ICBMs in the last 10+ years, after giving up Yuzhmash expertise in rocket engines, leaving it to Ukraine, which can't capitalize on it financially (and US has now it's own cheap means to deliver satellites to orbit, thanks to SpaceX, so Ukrainian rockets are out of favor there as well)
> but you can't spread hope on your sandwich, as an old Russian proverb goes.
Europe can militarily fight Russia. That’s not really the problem. It’s more that Europeans don’t have the heart for it. They are too prosperous and don’t want to risk their lives. Russia is poor so the tradeoff is simpler.
You’re not going to get young German to go to the front. He is more interested in domestic interest-generational conflict.
For quite some time, I have been convinced that all forms of advertising are net negative for society. It seems that affiliate marketing (pay for results, not exposure) is not much better.
This is precisely the same dilemma as self-driving cars. Who will be held accountable if something goes wrong? Who will be dragged into court by shareholders?
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